Marty Peretz, editor of The New Republic, says the First Amendment is a privilege, not a right, and concludes that Muslims haven’t earned it. Of course if you were to accept Peretz’s absurd first premise, you might conclude Peretz hasn’t earned it, either.

Any definition of “use of force” that includes “verbally threatening suspects” is itself suspect. I’d like to see the percentages recalculated to remove that aspect from the definition, to see how it changes things.

The crusading journalist on CNN, Amber whatever, keeps saying Craigslist
adult ads promote “Child sex trafficking.”
First, I have never seen a website with so many disclaimers
aimed to prevent this from happening. Even on the platonic dating ads.
Second, same old story, regulating these businesses keeps minors out.
Give the sex workers cards and STD tests like
Brazil or Costa Rica or Argentina and other places
I have met these workers (in my research) and you will
help drive out the pimps and abusers.
It’s that simple.
Why don’t the AGs and other sex police just say they think prostitution is icky-poo and stop relying upon the “trafficking” red herring?
Are Americans really buying that line?

I think the Craiglist piece is kinda weak given the arguments at her disposal and her obvious knowledge and credibility.

The best argument she only barely touches on is that craiglist is helpful because it means that people looking for sex – the customer – don’t have to rely on shady, actual criminals to connect them to an underground world and/or thereby contribute to these completely unaccountable criminals. Essentially: why use a pimp if you can just find an “escort” online?

Inching closer to an open and free market, cuts into the profits of the black market, and harms those who would otherwise have financial incentives to traffic, enslave and exploit.

The media crusade against Craigslist has nothing to do with sex trafficking or prostitution and everything to do with the fact that CL has cost the large media conglomerates billions upon billions of dollars in lost revenue from classified ads.

John Jenkins: when someone other than a police officer threatens someone, in common law, it’s called “assault”. While it’s a tedious question of definitions, assault convictions usually do count as violence under most legal definitions. I really can see why verbal threats could count as use of force.

Peretz’s article didn’t seem very seirious since it clearly lacked copy editing. It does, however, skirt by a serious point that those who seek to supress speech should be condemned for doing so (e.g. those Muslims who rioted in response to the Danish cartoons or those who sought to condment Salman Rushdie to death). Many of those who have done the most to limit or destroy free speech in recent years have been Muslim.

She talks about “transparency” a lot, but doesn’t suggest the one thing that would bring the most transparency to selling sex. That, of course, is legalization. Keeping prostitution illegal delivers prostitutes right in the eager hands of the sleazy criminal underworld which makes those who oppose legalization accomplices to the abuse.

Her answer is not legalization but assigning more resources to law enforcement and her reason for keeping Craig’s List adult section open is because it helps law enforcement find the bad guys (which, to cops, includes prostitutes).

Sorry, but I don’t find her argument much better than those who campaigned to close the adult section of Craig’s List in the first place.

@Aaron: So what? First, common law crimes have been mostly abolished in this country and replaced by statutory definitions of crimes (and assault only encompassed placing someone in immediate apprehension of harm, in any event; all threats would not qualify). Also, I really don’t need a legal history lesson :-)

Second, by separating out threats of force from actual force, we would gain additional insight. I suspect that the percentage differences would widen (that is, college-educated officers are more likely to use threats than actual violence), but it would be interesting to see whether that is true. Bluntly, I don’t care about the legal definition in this context because I think the way they parsed the data may have concealed something interesting.

“demeaning themselves and their sexuality to perform sex acts on a segment of society that is probably on average more abusive and deranged than most other people”
——-
In Argentina they turned it into a women’s rights issue
and marched in the streets. “Keeps your laws out of our lives and careers, you pigs!
We’re confident , free and happy doing this for a living.”
What’s a less abusive job, I wonder, making 12 dollars an hour writing documents and pouring coffee for some smug, uptight prick?

If someone held a gun up to you and said “give me your wallet!”, would you not consider him to be using force against you until he ripped it out of your pocket or shot you? The fact is, when a cop tells you “you must do X” while in the commission of his duties, he means “you must do X, or I will force you to do X/imprison you/shoot you.” How is that meaningfully different from actually carrying through on the threat?

@Michael: Yeah, it’s amazing how many people just can’t grasp the whole “Congress shall make no law” thing. The first amendment doesn’t “grant” jack shit, it protects natural rights from government interference. Actually that was the idea behind the entire Bill of Rights.

I don’t usually comment, but the article about cops with better education resorting to force less often rings pretty true to me. My mom is a recently retired cop who had a college degree, and she was not at all inclined to use force. I think it also helped that she became a cop in her early 40’s instead of her early 20’s. Maturity is always a good thing when you’re putting that much power in somebody’s hands.

The problem with Muslim nutjobs is not what they say; the First Amendment should not be an issue. If we enforced the existing laws against funding terrorist groups, brutalizing women, and damaging property (something we should do to ALL protest-twits) the really dangerous Islamic radicals could then say whatever they wanted to… from their jail cells.

The followers of Islam have an absolute right to be treated equally under the law. They should, therefore, be given the same respect and deference we accord to the KKK.

It does, however, skirt by a serious point that those who seek to supress speech should be condemned for doing so (e.g. those Muslims who rioted in response to the Danish cartoons or those who sought to condment Salman Rushdie to death). Many of those who have done the most to limit or destroy free speech in recent years have been Muslim.

Well, it certainly is abusive if it is only allowed as a part of the criminal underworld. It’d be interesting to see how quickly a sex-workers union cleaned up the business in a country where prositution is legal*.

Let’s not forget that “abusive” shouldn’t default to “illegal”. Taxation is abusive. But, I like the services I get from prostitution much better than what I get from taxation.

*I mean REALLY legal and not just “legal” where the Feds still raid you at gunpoint or regulate you so much as to still justify a blackmarket.

That’s a perfect illustration of my point, actually. If a police officer’s every direction is backed by the potential use of force, then any demarcation is impossible because every encounter with an officer involves the use of force. IS the difference overt threat of force? How much of a threat qualifies? Put your hands where I can see them [or else I might shoot you]. Is that use of force? I don’t know. That’s why I’d like to see the data separated out so I can see the difference.

Also, the term “male-centric” was used to describe my outlook. Thanks a lot Radley, this is going to be a fun fight after work tonight.
…Rhayader, my beloved is a big-time feminist and my best advice for you is to try not to provoke these kinds of arguments.

Thanks for reminding me how awesome my wife is. She’s the one who introduced me to the Agitator.

Yay!!! A college-educated cop is less likely to shoot my brains out than a GED cop. I feel SO much better.

Newsflash — any police officer is force “a priori.”

A police officer merely existing, not even acting, is force. The potential to act with force counts as force — that’s logical enough.

But even before that, police officers are paid with tax (read: stolen) money. That money has to be taken by force.

There is no meaningful way to differentiate between qualities of force regarding police officers. To treat actual physical violence as the only force worthy of consideration is to not see the forest for the trees.

To clarify, Muslims, like everyone else, have a natural right to free speech which Congress is constitutionally from making a law to restrict. They are aboslutely free to claim (and I’ve got no problem with them claiming) that there is no God but Allah, that dogs are unclean or that making a visual depiction of Mohammed is offensive. I even believe that, in most cases, respecting the sensitivities of others is a great idea if it’s not a big deal. I do my best to avoid pointless offense by avoiding certain langauge most of the time.

That doesn’t change the fact that there are countless examples of certain Muslims using violence and intimidation to try and silence those they disagree with. Only a very small minority may actually commit violence and many Muslims have condemned such efforts, but few would argue that criticism of Islam is risky.

But, frankly, Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims. And among those Muslims led by the Imam Rauf there is hardly one who has raised a fuss about the routine and random bloodshed that defines their brotherhood. So, yes, I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse.

As bad as you just did?*
I don’t know why I ever thought the left was better on civil liberties than the right as they are equally atrocious.

Muslim protests are usually protesting the latter, not the former, and calling for someone’s death is pretty much the ultimate form of protesting the right to speak.

You might not be aware, but multiple people died in Pakistan in various incidents that were cited as a response to the Danish cartoons. It’s strange that people try to equate such violence to a simple protestation of the content.

The problem in Missouri has a simple answer, if lawmakers have the guts. Simply, for every dollar seized which doesn’t go to schools as the law requires, a dollar is removed from the policing budget and added to the schools budget. i.e. One way or another.